


the sun is trying to kill the moon

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25572202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: “Where,” he hisses, leaning into Andy’s space, “the hell is Nicky?”Andy doesn’t flinch even when Joe gets up close, his anger unrestrained. She lets it all wash over her before settling her coffee cup on the table. She’s staring at him like he’s the one with a problem, as if he’s gone crazy. “Joe, I don’t know who Nicky is.”The science community unveils successful time travel and the very next morning, Joe wakes to find that no one knows who Nicky Smith is, other than him. Faced with the prospect of a life without Nicky, Joe will stop at nothing to get him back.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 156
Kudos: 850





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Crystal for the incredible beta, and the title comes from Joseph Arthur's _Honey and the Moon_.

Why the television is still going, Joe doesn’t know. 

Nicky had returned home victorious from his errands, high on the conquest of discovering the soy milk Nile liked. Once the food had been put away, he’d advanced on Joe in seconds, grabbing him by the wrists to pin him against the sofa with slow kisses that traverse his body, exploring each inch of skin revealed as he pushes up the linen shirt Joe is wearing.

“...of course we’re very eager for our first test,” a woman speaks on television. “It’s 2036, I think people want to know if time travel is real, don’t you think?”

“Nicky,” Joe groans. “Turn the goddamn television off.”

“I’m busy, Joe,” he counters. “You turn it off.”

_“Do you have a specific time period you intend to travel to?”_

_“Of course! We’ve been researching this for nearly a decade and some of our team are avid history buffs. We’re going to…”_

Joe finally finds the remote and turns it off, throwing the thing on the ground beside them so he can grab Nicky by the hips to pin him to the sofa. Now that he’s removed all other distractions, he is the only thing in Nicky’s world, the only thing he can look at. The weight of Nicky’s gaze still throws Joe off balance, even expecting it -- _encouraging_ it even -- and his heart aches with a love he’s surprised by, even now.

He loves this man, with all his heart and it fills his soul with a lightness that carries him.

“Joe,” Nicky chastises gently. “You have that look in your eye again.”

He knows the one Nicky means -- it’s the one where he’s drifted away from the present and into the wealth of their past, so many memories and so much love to tangle himself up in. “Give me a different look, then,” he dares.

Nicky, never one to back down from a challenge, gets a devious glint in his eye as he grabs Joe’s shoulders to roll them onto the floor, kissing him with a slow passion that tells Joe he intends to draw this out until Joe’s robbed of all languages other than the soft cadence of his breaths. 

The impact of the floor doesn’t even hurt, their bodies healing what Nicky’s kisses cannot. 

“I love you,” Joe breathes the truest words he’s ever spoken to the other half of his heart.

Nicky smiles, Joe’s breath stutters, and the next kiss is a reply to Joe’s declaration. It’s Nicky showing Joe just how much he loves him in return. 

It is everything he needs, and Joe lets Nicky exhaust their bodies until they have to crawl back to bed. There, Joe wraps his arms around Nicky and buries his face in his neck, secure and settled, protected by the strong line of Nicky’s body and his gun. 

That night, there are no nightmares.

There are also no dreams.

* * *

Joe wakes up alone.

He reaches for Nicky, but the bed is already cold. Joe stretches out, grateful as ever that their gift means there’s no lingering soreness after the kind of incredible night he and Nicky had. Still, waking up without him is never ideal and Nicky feels the same, so whatever roused him from bed must have been urgent.

There’s a shuffle of movement at the bedroom door, and Joe grins as he stretches out, expecting Nicky’s return.

“Come crawling back because you missed me, did you?”

Only, when the door opens, it’s not Nicky.

It’s _Booker_ , with a bowl of cerea and the spoon halfway to his mouth.

Reality crashes in swiftly. Joe reaches for the gun Nicky stores under the mattress, but it’s gone too. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he demands, as if Booker poses any real threat by breaking his banishment early. “And where the hell is Nicky?” Because if Booker is here, then why is Nicky gone? Why is Nicky’s weapon gone? He can’t even see his sword, which means only one thing.

He must be on a mission, but Andy wouldn’t have sent him out there without telling Joe. Even if she tried, Nicky would have told him. 

“Good morning to you too,” Booker mumbles. “Nile says real breakfast will be ready in ten.”

That’s wrong, too.

Nicky usually makes sure there’s coffee and breakfast. It’s mainly because he has very specific ideas about what constitutes real coffee, but everyone reaps the benefits of his pedantry. For Nile to be in charge of breakfast would mean Nicky ceding control and Joe knows that doesn’t happen so easily.

It’s all fucking wrong.

“Hey,” Joe growls, not content to let Booker fucking walk around their safe house when his hundred years aren’t up. “I’m not done with you,” he warns, chasing after him to the kitchen in a state of sleepy disarray. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“He’s eating all my cereal, Joe,” Andy says calmly. “It’s what he always does.”

Andy is drinking coffee like nothing is wrong, and Nile is serving up scrambled eggs onto a large plate. The casual air in the room is killing him, because none of them seem to give a damn about the fact that Nicky is missing. Even if he’s been sent on a mission, this is cold, even for them. Nicky’s not mad at him, he thinks. Maybe if he were, he’d get the rest of them to help with the cold shoulder treatment, but it’s Booker’s presence he can’t understand.

“Boss,” Booker calls over Joe’s shoulder. “He’s in a weird one this morning.”

“Where’s Nicky?” he demands. “Where did you send him?”

Andy’s always been an impenetrable emotional fortress at the best of times, but Joe’s anger is rising with every passing second where she doesn’t give him a tell. If this is a joke or a game, Joe’s already done playing and he wants to make it plenty clear that Andy should be, too.

“Where,” he hisses, leaning into Andy’s space, “the hell is Nicky?”

Andy doesn’t flinch even when Joe gets up close, his anger unrestrained. She lets it all wash over her before settling her coffee cup on the table. She’s staring at him like _he’s_ the one with a problem, as if he’s gone crazy. “Joe, I don’t know who Nicky is.”

He recoils as if struck, gaping at her, wanting to insist that this cruel of a joke is unfair. If he did something to make them act like this, it’d be one thing, but Booker’s presence is a smoking gun that this isn’t some elaborate prank.

More to the point, Joe knows Andy. He’s known her for almost a thousand years, and he knows when she’s joking. Right now, she’s deadly serious. Joe cups his mouth with his hand, stifling the choked sob of horror that wants to escape. 

“It’s been Nicky and I for a thousand years,” he protests as he drags his hand away, fighting to hold on to the one steady truth he’s always had. “It’s always been me and Nicky, the two of us, we were lucky,” he protests, fingers scrabbling to grip the kitchen table when his world feels physically shaken. 

_Nicolò, where the fuck are you?_

Andy presses her lips together, clearly sympathetic, but that doesn’t stop her from pouring salt into Joe’s wounds.

“You’ve been alone, Joe. Quynh and I found you wandering alone in the 12th century. There was never another man with you. The three of us travelled together until we lost her, then we picked up Booker. Nile was the last,” she says. “I lost my mortality years ago, and we’ve been doing what we can with the time I have left.” 

Wrong.

It’s _wrong_.

The chill down his back is terrifying him. How the hell could he have lost Nicky? How is it that only he remembers him? These people are his family too, and Andy, especially Andy, should know him.

“That’s not right,” Joe snaps. “Nicky and I killed each other during the Crusades. We kept waking up and we _kept_ killing each other.”

Until they didn’t, and their blades struck flesh for the last time before they set out together. 

Joe doesn’t stop there. He needs to tell them the way the world is supposed to be. It’s a lot to cover, so Joe does his best to explain what’s _supposed_ to be in broad strokes.

He keeps the story short when it gets to more recent events, eyes cutting to Booker because he’s not sure what changed that he’s still here with them. He doesn’t tell them everything, mainly because in a thousand years, there are too many things to cover and Joe would rather be finding Nicky than talking about him.

“What I don’t understand,” Andy says later, once Joe has finished with his passionate explanation, “is why you still remember him and the rest of us have no idea who the hell he is.”

It echoes in his head, words he’s heard a hundred times, in Nicky’s voice. 

Joe’s rueful laugh _hurts_ , like an echoing blow Nicky left behind, but his body can’t heal this. “Destiny,” he says out loud, his lips pressed together tightly as he stares at his hands, devoid of the gifts Nicky has lavished upon him over the years. They’ve never known, truly, but they’ve always thought that their finding one another and dying together had been some form of destiny.

Maybe, with Nicky gone, the universe _wants_ Joe to remember so he can fix it.

“What the hell does that mean?” Andy demands flatly.

“Nicky always said that we were meant to find each other,” Joe says, closing his eyes as a new wave of grief strikes him. How the hell did any Joe live without Nicky for a thousand years? What kind of man would he even be? “Maybe I’m supposed to find him.”

He doesn’t have a dream leading him to Nicky, but he has his memories and that’s all he needs to start.

“We’ll help,” Nile says instantly, the first to offer. “This is clearly something you’re going to do, with or without us. We wanna be with you.”

Joe’s not sure that she understands the lengths he’ll go to in order to get Nicky back; not this version of his family. She says they’ll help, but she doesn’t know what they’re offering to Joe -- or rather, what he intends to take.

To get Nicky back, he’ll use every last resource they have, whether they’re freely given or if Joe has to _steal_ and he knows that there won’t be an ounce of regret or remorse for it, not when it comes to Nicky.

* * *

Two additional nights pass and Nicky is still gone.

Joe sleeps like crap, staying awake to help Booker with the research and trying to get over the way this timeline is so goddamn different. He hasn’t even managed to ask why he’s still here, but with yet another name and image search going, Joe has two options -- he can continue to ignore Booker or he can finally ask.

Ignoring him had been fine the first night, but Joe’s not sure he can deal with it tonight.

Especially since there isn’t even a game on to distract him.

“How come you’re not banished?” Joe asks.

“Why’d it happen in your timeline?” Booker asks, not bothering to look at Joe (or purposefully avoiding it, which Joe suspects is more the truth).

“You sold us out to Copley and Merrick,” Joe says, and even talking about it brings up spiteful memories. The only reason he’s tolerating this is because Booker is the only one he trusts to help him find information about what happened to Nicky. “You wanted to die, so you sold us out to him so he could find out what makes us live and you could discover how to die.”

Booker lets out a rough exhalation.

“I do still want to die,” he admits, sounding exhausted. “But so does Andy, and so do you. I don’t know what this Nicky guy does to change that, but the Joe I know is just as exhausted as I am. Until Nile came along, it was the three of us, our little trio of misery.” 

“So it never happened? Merrick never made a grab?”

“He tried,” Booker says, shaking his head. “Copley approached me, said he’d figured it out, told me that I had a gift to give and I should share it with the world. Said he was in league with a company that could dive into our genetics and figure it out. We figured out his game and then sent me in as a double-agent to make sure we could tie it off, but we kept Copley on to help us.” 

No Nicky, no kidnapping, no banishment. 

What kind of miserable and pathetic man is Joe in this reality without Nicky? And why the hell does it hurt more to think that in this world, Booker can _take_ it, but only because Joe’s been alone. He’s still miserable, but he’s content to be miserable with company, so long as they’re all in the same boat. 

“What’d you give me?” Booker asks, tapping on the keys as Joe paces. “The banishment? How long am I alone?”

“Hundred years,” Joe says. “I wanted more. Nicky wanted the century. Nile wanted an apology.” Andy never said, so they’d compromised in the middle with Nicky’s suggestion. 

Even with that, the universe found him a loophole, but Joe’s not really upset given that Booker is helping. If he stops or if he betrays Joe’s trust again, that will change.

Joe starts another loop around the room when Booker has no response. At least, not an audible one. He goes for his flask in typical Booker fashion, though right now, Joe thinks he could use a drink too.

“Hey,” Booker calls, in the midst of Joe’s thought about leaving to nab a bottle of vodka from Andy. “We got something.”

Joe’s across the room in seconds, looming over Booker’s shoulder to stare at the screen, which is a wall of text that Joe can read with ease. It’s Latin, and it’s old, but he knows it like the back of his hand still. Whatever took Nicky from him hasn’t gotten a hold of his memories and Joe will fight to the death to keep them. 

“It’s an obituary,” he says, heart sinking in his chest. “Nicolò di Genova, a priest who was at the Siege of Jerusalem, returned to his home to preach at the local church until his death in 1145. He will be remembered for his kind heart and his love of his city.”

He died. 

He _died_ without becoming immortal and this is the only remnant of him.

Is it because he hadn’t died alongside Joe? Did the universe, this time around, allow Nicky to live out to old age and his death because he hadn’t died where he was supposed to?

Joe’s lost in a haze of thoughts when Booker’s computer goes off again. “Another one. This one way more recent…” He trails off, and the look he gives Joe is wary. “Is this your guy?”

Joe leans in and stares at the computer screen to find a picture of a man he’d know anywhere.

It’s Nicky.

It’s his Nicky, the way he remembers him back in 1099, at the Siege. He’d remember that beard forever, and those clothes are practically burned into his mind. If he closes his eyes, he can still _smell_ the battlefield. His sword gleams in the photo beside him and his armor is shiny and polished and new, but what Joe doesn’t understand is how this is here. “That’s Nicolò,” Joe confirms. “How the hell can this exist?”

“This?” Booker hits the screen capture to grab a photo, “This is very illegal hacking that I just did into the European Research Organization for Quantum Physics,” he tells him. “This is highly confidential proof of time travel.”

“Show me the mission notes,” Joe demands, shoving Booker’s hands away.

“Hey,” Booker warns. “Do you want them or not?” He curses in French and shoves Joe aside. “Let me do my job.” 

Joe only relents because Booker types faster than he does, and as much as Joe might be an expert in a hundred things that Booker’s never heard of, hacking and computers has never been his strong suit, so he lets Booker do his thing.

“It says here,” Booker reads, even though Joe has already leapt ahead and is reading the paragraph again, “that they sent a delegation back in time for a twenty-four hour period to prove their technology worked. They broke bread with a priest and some of his people from Genoa before the battle and in the course of their conversation, the priest thought his life’s purpose was better suited to preaching back home. He elected not to fight on the front lines, instead tending to the wounded. He told them that rather than fighting those he had been taught to hate, he would return home to preach peace.”

The news from the mission is proof that it was Nicky’s kindness that undid their destiny, all because someone from the future took their science and meddled with the past. 

Joe feels fury rise in him, staring at this photograph of the man he loves, aching to run his fingers through his hair again. Every minute that he’s apart from Nicky makes him feel more unmoored than before. He’s adrift without his rudder, and he’s desperate to get him back. 

Booker sits there and watches Joe’s breakdown, making a ‘hnn’ noise in his throat. “What are we going to do?” he asks tiredly, because he clearly already knows.

“I’m getting Nicky back,” Joe tells him. “Call Copley. Tell him I picked our next mission and he has forty-eight hours to get me access to EROQP.”

“You want to run it by the boss, first?”

In a thousand years, Joe hasn’t felt as furiously alight with purpose as he does now. At least, not since the first time he killed Nicolò a dozen lifetimes ago. 

“Do it, Booker,” Joe orders.

It feels only right that the incandescent fury of a holy purpose has returned to him in order to bring Nicky _back_ to him.

* * *

Joe is bristling with a wild energy, raging furiously in his blood, and thinking to himself that he really fucking hates waiting. 

Until Copley gives them the all clear, though, they’re stuck in this van. 

If it weren’t for Nile taking point, he’d already be in the facility with his bag, ready to go get back Nicky. As it is, he’s under a hold signal, because the shift change still needs to happen to give them their bought guard and bribed scientist. Joe keeps a heavy grip on his gun, fingers going tense and then loosening in ten second cycles. 

Eventually, Nile notices.

“Hey,” she says, reaching over to rest her hand over his. “Easy,” she advises. “Talk to us.”

Joe doesn’t want to talk.

He wants to burn the lab down. He wants to kill something. He wants to go back to a week ago when he was a stupid idiot who didn’t pay attention to a group of scientists who intended to travel back in time, and in the process, robbed Joe of the most important thing in his life. 

“What about?”

“What’s he like?” Nile encourages. “Nicky?”

Joe has given a thousand speeches about him. He could tell them that he’s the moon when Joe is lost in darkness or that Nicky is the reason Joe’s heart still beats with romance. He could tell them of the kindness of his soul and how he’s always inspired Joe to be his best, or he could tell them about how he could drown in his eyes and happily revive only to do it again. 

It feels like he’s an empty shell without him here. 

Nicky is a thousand years away and there’s no guarantee that this will work. 

Let there be a thousand and one speeches, he decides. 

“I’ve praised him for nearly a thousand years and it still isn’t enough. I can’t begin to measure the kindness of his heart when you think about how many centuries of humanity’s darkest acts have tried to weigh it down. I protect what I can, but he demands we do what’s right. He’s kind, but deadly, disarming and beautiful. Even in the darkest moments, he’ll try and earn a single smile from my lips, and even though I’ve loved him for over nine hundred years, I beg the universe to give me nine hundred more, nine hundred _thousand_ more kisses, nine million more touches. I always knew that I didn’t want to live in a world without Nicky, but to actually be in one only proves that my life is only properly lived with him in it. Nicky called it destiny that we should meet, and I think it’s true. I think the day I was born, I was hurtling towards Nicolò and our lives together. He’s devoted and dutiful and he loves you both. He’s a good friend,” Joe finishes, firmly, as if he needs to convince Nile and Booker when they’re already on board. “And in that other reality, the one I’m in, he’s your family too.”

He wants to go on. He wants to talk about Nicky until he runs out of breath. He could die from asphyxiation exalting Nicky’s virtues, but Joe goes quiet as he stares at the lab, thinking about the Joe that’s been here instead. 

He feels sorry for him -- a man who can’t possibly know what he’s been missing and has been living without love.

“He clearly means a lot to you,” Nile says, the compassion on her face every bit as beautiful and achingly sweet as the Nile he knows. “I hope I’ll get to know him.” 

Joe’s infinitely grateful for her empathy, in this moment. It fuels his hope, reminds him of Nicky, and that’s all he needs. 

“He means _everything_ and you will. We’re getting him back.”

He sees the look that Booker and Nile exchange. He knows there are some hidden agendas here, probably an order from Andy to walk away if this gets too risky, but this isn’t a mission to try and right the world for the betterment of society. This is getting Nicky back, because he _is_ Joe’s world. 

Luckily, there’s no need to focus on that look when Copley’s ‘all clear’ comes over the radio.

Booker replies back with, “Copy. We’re going dark. Over,” and sets it to silent. 

“You ready for this?” Nile asks Joe.

He tries not to be insulted. She means well, he knows she does, but he’d been ready to storm this motherfucking place the moment he found out they’re the reason Nicky’s been taken from him. The fact that he waited a few days for Copley to make arrangements for this to happen quietly has been like torture. 

“Remember, no one dies,” Booker warns.

Joe says nothing. 

If they can’t bring Nicky back, he’s not entirely sure that’s a promise he can make.

Nile leads them in through the back. It’s a private entrance with minimal cameras, but the footage has been looped thanks to Copley working remotely with Andy to give them their entrance. The one guard doing his rotation is looking the other way, which gives them a clear line to the lab. 

He knows Nile is supposed to lead, but the closer they get, the more Joe’s anger begins to cloud his vision and his calm mission brain.

These people _took_ Nicky from him. 

In this world, they reduced Yusuf Al-Kaysani to one half of a whole, robbing him of the man he’s supposed to spend eternity with. 

His steps grow longer to get him there faster, the space his body takes up increasing as he challenges anyone to even _think_ about getting in his way. It turns him into a looming shadow in the hall, a monster to scare your children with stories about. 

He leads with his gun, because Joe really wants to shoot something tonight.

It might make him feel better about losing Nicky if he gets to watch someone bleed for it. 

“Joe,” Booker hisses behind him. “Slow down.”

He ignores him, checking lab numbers on the doors until he gets to the one at the end with the thickest and most secure door. Just as Copley’s promised, the security pad is green, giving him entrance. Joe breaches the room without waiting for Nile, leading with his weapon locked on the woman in a lab coat standing by a table full of gadgets. 

These are the people that stole Nicky from him. 

They’re the ones who will get him back, no matter what. 

“Get the device ready,” Joe orders her, as Nile and Booker close in behind him, sealing the door. She jumps, hands in the air and lets out a frantic noise of panic when she sees the weapon. If that’s the case, she really won’t like what happens if Joe ends up using it. 

“Please don’t shoot me, I’m here to help,” the scientist says, flinching when Joe keeps the gun aimed at her head despite her promise. “You’re the people, right?”

Nile takes point by brushing past Joe, pushing his gun down with a warning look in her eyes. “We are,” she agrees, shoving the duffel bag to Joe. “Get ready,” she tells him, before turning back to look at the scientist, who fidgets with her glasses and gapes at Joe now that the gun is no longer in her face.

There’s something else there, beneath the fear. 

She wants her payout, Joe can tell. Even scared, she wants the money. He can see the way she’s about to ask, the way that even the threat of violence hasn’t stopped it.

It’s greedy and selfish, but if she weren’t, then Joe wouldn’t get this chance. He tucks away his gun in the waist of his pants and takes the duffel, glaring at Nile for shooing him away like a misbehaving child. She’s definitely learned her fair share, because she gives as good as she gets.

“Go,” Nile reminds him. “Get changed.”

Joe ducks behind a corner and strips off his clothes to change into his old ones (which are only held together by the steady devotion of his repairing them over the years), eavesdropping as he hears Booker and Nile quietly asking questions about the technology and what it will do, if it works properly. He hears the scientist ask about her money and Booker’s reminder that she only gets it if the device works. 

“The device scans you, essentially, and then sends you back to a point that you select, transmitting you through time,” the woman explains.

Joe can hear the frayed edge in her voice. 

She’s scared. Probably because the device is still so new and she’s worried that it might not work. 

She should be. She might not be the one who actively took Nicky from him, but her actions have consequences. While Joe is willing to be patient and play nice to get him back, he’s also allowed to be _angry_ , and to think about what will happen if this mission doesn’t go to plan. 

Joe fixes his attention on changing into the clothes for the mission. He’s cautious and careful with each piece of delicate clothing, but with each one, they put him in the mindset of the man he used to be. These aren’t the exact same clothes he’d worn during the Siege because Nicky had done a good job staining them with blood and cutting through the fabric with his longsword into frayed pieces. They’re the ones he wore in the days after, when he and Nicky brokered a tentative peace and began their journey towards what they have now. They’re clothes that Joe has mended and taken care to keep because of how much they mean to him.

He takes his helmet under his arm and steps out towards the others. Every shred of Joseph Jones is gone, by his physical appearance. Here stands Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani, ready to enter his past to fetch his soulmate.

His reappearance has clearly caused some shock. 

“I see it now,” Nile murmurs, almost like it’s taken her until now to truly believe that he once fought in the Crusades. Joe adjusts his stance, hand protectively on his belt where the scimitar should be, but it’s too risky bringing it. He knows what weapon he will need to use, and it’s too risky to bring his own. He has a knife, though, in case he can’t find anything on the battlefield and after nine centuries, he knows a thousand ways to use it.

“Where did you get all this stuff?” the scientist marvels, gaping at him. “Our research team spent five years sewing replicas, but this looks completely authentic.”

“I’m a collector,” Joe deadpans. “Show me how to use the device.”

She slips it on his wrist and shows him how to program in the date and year he wants to travel to, right down to the hour, and how to trigger the return journey. “You won’t be able to bring anything back with you,” she warns. “It reads the molecular structure of what you’re carrying, down to the last shred of clothing, so what you have now is what’s coming back.”

“How long do I have?”

“Twenty four hours,” she tells him, helping to program in the time. “Agent Copley told me you wanted to go back to the exact same time as our scientists?”

“Two hours before they arrived,” he says firmly. “I won’t interfere with them,” is a promise made to Copley that he says aloud again.

Nile, nearby, nods her satisfaction. 

Joe hopes he’ll manage to keep that promise, but he also knows it depends on whether they interfere. If he’s able to get to Nicky and lure him out onto the battlefield to do what must be done, then the scientists can have their one voyage through time, but they can mess up someone else’s life up, but not Joe’s. Joe and Nicky’s long lives are not theirs to touch. 

“If you die back there,” the scientist says fretfully. “You won’t come back.”

“That won’t be an issue,” Joe says evenly, trying not to smirk at the inside joke. 

He adjusts his hold on his helmet, mentally reviewing the plan in his mind, knowing exactly what he’ll have to do when he gets back there. It’s something he hasn’t thought of in years, something that causes pain to flood him with the grief of knowing what has to happen, but Joe’s done worse things.

It’s been a while since he did them to Nicky, though. 

“Stay safe,” Nile says, her eyes fraught with worry. 

“Try not to change too much,” is the most Booker gives him. 

Joe takes one last look at Nile and Booker as he stares at the device, then the woman who’s going to send him back with their experimental science. “Make sure we stick to the whole plan,” he warns, because when this is done, they’re walking out with the technology and corrupting the files.

They’ve spent too long working to do right in the world for people to have the power to go back and undo it all, without even realizing the full impact of their actions.

“Good luck,” Nile says.

“Goodbye,” says Booker, pragmatic as ever.

One way or the other, the Joe he knows isn’t coming back. If he’s successful, then this world should vanish like smoke. If he’s not successful, then he’ll return, but there’s no doubt he’ll be a different man. He won’t be the same when he returns and Booker knows that. 

Joe gives the scientist a nod, permission to send him through time to get Nicky. 

Dressed as he was a thousand years ago, he thinks he ought to feel a bit like a ghost stepping back into a life he can barely remember. He’s shed the past through his clothes, his name, even his beliefs, but today, he returns to them, a prodigal son.

The light of the lab blinks away and time digs its claws into Joe. He’s spent so long trudging through the years towards the future, and now, it’s time for him to sink back into the past to go after Nicky.

It’s time for him to get his _everything_ back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where that violence rating comes in. Thanks, again, to Crystal for the beta and helping figure out why the pace just wasn't working.

Before he even opens his eyes, it’s the _sound_ that nearly knocks Joe off his feet. 

This sound shouldn’t be different than any other battle. The clash of metal should be the same, the sound of men dying shouldn’t change, but there’s something about this particular battle-scarred landscape that has never left Joe and crystallizes it as unique in his mind. He’d know it anywhere. It’s in his nightmares and his dreams. Now, again, it’s impossibly here before him.

He opens his eyes to a familiar sight painted before him, a battle raging in the distance and the tents of his former enemies flickering before him in the dusk light. 

It’s 1099. He’s in Jerusalem, near the Wall. 

In the years after this, Nicky had told him about what happened in the days leading up to the battle that brought them to one another. He’d spoken of the ship’s voyage and how it had made him furiously seasick, how he’d prayed to God constantly for dry land until finally his feet touched solid ground and the sickness abated. 

He’d thought that the end of God’s blessings.

“I didn’t know that God was not done blessing me yet,” Nicky always finishes his story, “because he saw fit to give me you, too.” 

Joe inhales sharply to quell the ache in his chest. He’s so close, but he’s still so far and even the memory of Nicky’s fingers stroking over his warm skin in the light of a fire as he spoke of Joe being his blessing isn’t enough, when he has limited time to work. 

He shoves his helmet under a pile of Genoese weapons nearby. He’ll need it soon, but right now, he’s wearing the clothes of the Franks, needing to blend in with them. Nicky’s here, somewhere, even if he’s still Nicolò di Genova -- a man removed from history by the stupidity of people who had no idea how much he means to Joe.

It’s easy to get lost in the crowd, especially when he speaks their language, though Joe is aware that he’s not moving without some attention drawn to him. He knows he doesn’t belong, which means he needs to keep his head down and keep moving, otherwise he’s bound to get in the kind of trouble that will delay his mission. 

Joe decides to make a gambit and ask bluntly, instead of wasting his head start playing hide and seek in a city he barely remembers. He flags down the attention of two passing men, their longswords stained with blood. 

“I’m looking for Nicolò,” he asks, careful to ensure he sounds as if he fits right in.

“Which one?” one of them asks, starting at Joe a little too long. 

Steely-eyed, Joe holds his ground. “Nicolò di Genova. He’s a priest who sailed in with the last Genoese ship.” 

They exchange a look, clearly not sure they should trust him, but eventually the second relents. “The bank of tents down there, first before the front.” 

Joe presses a hand to his chest to offer his thanks, quickly moving away from the two in case they get any ideas about stopping him for a longer interrogation. With directions, Joe makes a brief detour to get his helmet. It’s the helmet of Nicolò’s enemy, the one he’s been taught to hate. It will be what he needs in order to lure Nicolò out to the battlefield to meet his end. 

The line of tents must be where the time travelling delegation finds him when they arrive in a few hours. Rather than letting Nicolò go to the battlefield, instead they will break bread with him and the kindness of his priest’s heart will convince him to fight this war in other ways.

That’s not how it’ll happen this time. Not with Joe here. 

His search hits a snag when he sees the two men who had given him directions nearby, amassing more men to their side. They must not have liked something about the way he looked or spoke, because their hands are on their swords and it seems that they’re searching, now, for an enemy within their camps.

“Fuck,” Joe hisses, a new profanity for an old problem.

He doesn’t have time to pick and choose a place to hide, ducking swiftly into the first tent he sees, only to find it occupied. 

The woman inside startles so badly that she drops an armful of linens, her blue eyes wide with shock. “My god,” she exhales, frozen in sudden fear. Joe lifts both hands to show her that he has no weapon and he means no harm. “What are you doing here?”

Isn’t that the question?

“I’m searching for someone,” he tells her earnestly, hoping that his honesty will convince her that he means no harm. He speaks her language to offer extra assurances, setting the helmet down and standing before it to block her view of the enemy’s uniform within her tent. “My name is Yusuf,” he admits, trusting that revealing his true name will not cause consequences. He must be careful, though.

Breaking bread with Nicky had erased him from the timeline. Who knows what lingering here too long will do?

“Cara,” she replies. 

“You’re the washerwoman,” Joe deduces, given the amount of clothing in here.

“Yes,” she responds, and Joe doesn’t think she’s blinked in the time they’ve been speaking. “And I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

She doesn’t know the half of it, which is why the poor woman startles when Joe suddenly laughs, a sound ugly with grief. “This is the last place I should be,” he agrees, pitching his voice down when he hears voices outside, searching for an intruder. His eyes flash to Cara and he puts a finger to his lips. 

She stays quiet as they pass, but Joe isn’t sure she does it for him. She’s a washerwoman and finding a man within her tent would not bode well for her.

“I’m here to find someone,” he says, and decides that it won’t matter if he tells the truth. “The man I love is of your people and he’s here. I need to find him to get him back. I lost him,” he admits, the part of his soul that belongs to Nicky calling out for him and feeling utterly hollow without him. “I need to get him back.”

“It’s worth sneaking into the enemy’s camp to do this?”

“This man is worth everything in the world,” Joe promises. He has no time for a big speech when the sun is setting and he still must find Nicolò, but he still hears footsteps outside. It’s not safe to venture out yet. In a whisper, he goes on. “We make each other better. We fight for what is right and protect one another’s hearts from hardening, yet we are steel when we fight as one.”

Her brow furrows. “I do not understand. Steel?” she echoes.

The longer he stays, the more he’s clearly going to fuck up. Rather than explain that he used a word she won’t know, he sticks to the basics. “I love him,” he says. It tempers some of his anger and desperation, grounds him in what he’s here for. 

Cara’s gaze is tender, almost envious. “Come,” she says, gesturing to join her as she peeks out the front of the tent, one of her honey-blonde curls falling in his eyes. She reminds him a little of Nicky, in the slant of her nose and her steely look outside, like a sniper assessing a target. He takes his helmet under his arm to join her, careful to stay in the shadows of the tent. “They’ve gone. You will be safe, but not for long. I think you should hurry.”

“I will,” he vows. “God be with you,” he tells Cara, offering her a smile that he hopes will soothe her worries. She seals the tent firmly after him when he leaves, but her kindness fills Joe with revived purpose. He continues his search with added stealth now, creeping in the shadows of the line of tents, mindful that while he’s hunting, he’s also being sought. 

The row of tents seems infinite and Joe feels the minutes bleeding away as he continues to duck his head inside each, hoping that this will be where he finds his beloved, but it’s to no avail. Tent after tent, and no Nicolò. 

Joe is beginning to grow frustrated and impatient -- his two hour head start is not enough to waste time like this. His luck in having Cara help him is looking like the only good fortune he’ll have, until he’s blessed with another stroke of chance.

He hears a voice, one that he will never forget, nearby.

“Make sure the supplies are there. Our men will need it for the final assault.”

_Nicolò_. His Nicky.

It’s only been a week, but already it feels like an eternity. This isn’t even his Nicky, but it doesn’t matter. Joe keeps low, staring at his former enemy and thinking to himself that the long hair and all the scruff on his face really did make Nicky look like a wild thing.

No wonder Joe had wanted to kill him so badly.

Somewhere out there, on this field, Yusuf is waiting to do so. 

For now, he takes the moment to let himself be swept up in how beautiful Nicolò is. Back then, (or back now) Joe hadn’t taken the time to appreciate how brightly his eyes shone or the strength in his hands as he unloaded supplies. He’d never paid mind to the strong line of his jaw or the strength and sureness in how he moved. How could Joe have missed the most beautiful man in the world right before him? 

Nicolò ducks into a tent and Joe carefully steps around to the back of it as the sun continues to set, the landscape starting to burn in oranges and reds. Carefully, Joe tracks the number of shadows inside to make sure Nicolò is alone. 

He works carefully not to be seen before he slides the helmet on, shifting his clothing to invert the front of his tunic, covering up the mark of the Franks. He knows where Yusuf will be fighting and Joe has one goal.

Get him there and take _no_ chances.

When he strikes, it’s with a blunt brashness. He needs to make noise, needs to catch Nicolò’s attention, and needs him to give chase. He shoves the tent aside as he enters, then grabs at Nicolò’s sleeve to forcibly whirl him around to face Joe. Once he has him, he holds him there, giving him a long moment to stare upon his face and see who he is. The impulse lies in Joe to do something stupid, like kiss Nicolò, but he refrains from such stupidities. 

Instead, he stands there, waiting for a reaction that comes within seconds. 

“You!” Nicolò gasps, digging his fingers in the sleeve of Joe’s shirt and yanking. It tears the stitches, the fabric coming apart. 

He doesn’t know Joe, but there’s a sick thrill that pulses through him that Nicolò recognizes him as an enemy, if for no other reason than understanding that he’s someone that he’s meant to fight. 

Joe plays it up, eyes bright as he ducks out of the back of the tent, hoping Nicolò will give chase. “Me,” he agrees, and curses at him in Nicolò’s language to get him _truly_ vicious with fury, nodding his head to get him to follow. 

It works.

Walking backwards, he sees Nicolò shove his helmet on, but the sword stays in its sheath. Joe’s a little stronger, but Nicky’s always been faster, and he catches up in no time, meeting Joe at the edge of the battle with his fist. 

The blow to the face is familiar, even if Nicolò still hits without much power at this point, but Joe staggers back, pressing his fingers to his cheek. The bruise will fade, and the bloody lip is something Nicolò will only see if he doesn’t blink. The earlier rush taunting him has faded now that Joe has lured Nicolò here. 

His enemy approaches him with determination and intent. 

Nicolò intends to kill Joe, but he thinks he’s facing a foe with the advantage of a weapon when Joe appears to hold none. That’s not what’s going to happen. Stepping further back into the fray, Joe keeps a steady eye behind him, trying in vain to remember if this is where they first fell. 

He stops to stand his ground.

This is where it will have to happen.

_Forgive me, Nicky_ , Joe sends a silent prayer to his beloved, as the ghost of his past charges towards him.

Nicolò unsheathes his sword to attack, but it’s no use.

While Nicolò has been advancing like a jungle cat, all sleek lines of smooth and deadly danger, Joe has been readying the dagger at his side. He grips the hilt tightly and lets Nicolò assault him without falling back, waiting until the final moment when Nicolò is upon him to drive the dagger into his heart through his ribcage. This close, Nicolò could share breath with him. This close, Joe can see every flicker of emotion on his face. This close, Joe can feel his heart beat, and it kills him to know that soon, it will stop. 

“What…?”

He sees the moment Nicolò realizes the blade has punctured his flesh, mouth opening wide with shock as he gasps and lets out the breath that Joe is pushing out with the blade digging in. This close, he can see the pain in Nicolò’s eyes, how it _hurts_ , and how he doesn’t even seem to be surprised about the wound or the fact that he’s going to die.

Joe tangles his other hand in the fabric of Nicolò’s tunic as he holds him tight, yanking him in closer so the dagger will drive in deeper and so Joe can hold him. Nicolò’s lip quivers from pain, his fingers trying desperately to push Joe away, but he’s too weak. He’s dying. Nicolò is dying, in Joe’s arms, bleeding out from Joe’s weapon. 

Joe doesn’t blink. He can’t.

If he did, he’d stain the dust below with tears. 

“I’m doing this because I need it to happen,” Joe says, frantic to make him understand as Nicolò takes his dying breaths, staring at Joe with confusion and incredulity. “My name is Yusuf Al-Kaysani,” he says, while Nicolò is still conscious. “I killed you,” he says. “Remember that. Remember my face.”

Nicolò takes his last breath and slumps forward into Joe’s arms, where he’s caught and held. Sweat, dirt, and blood collect at the base of his matted hair where Joe thrusts his hand to hold onto him, lifting him against his body in an awkward dance as he hitches him up and lifts him. 

He lumbers with him through the fight, side-stepping bodies, and drops him down in the midst of it where an ancient memory marks it as familiar _enough_. Joe pries off his helmet with shaky hands and tucks the dagger away, bending down to fix his tunic, the red cross returning as he pins the fabric in place. He unbuckles Nicolò’s sword from his belt and takes his helmet to affix on his own head, rising up as the enemy.

Nicolò’s body lies on the ground, dead as far as the world knows, but with any grace from above, he will rise once more.

Before he can move, his whole world stops.

He inhales, and the smell of Nicolò nearly overwhelms him from the helmet. It’s an ancient memory, this smell, but it wraps Joe up in a familiar embrace, renewing his purpose. With a hand on Nicolò’s sword, Joe sets off to find his next victim. 

It takes only minutes to find himself on the battlefield, his scimitar slashing a bloody path through his enemies. Joe walks with steady purpose towards him, fifty yards from Nicolò’s body, and ready for a fight.

“Enemy,” he hisses at Yusuf, lifting Nicolò’s longsword in challenge. The helmet will cover enough of his face and with the modernity of his appearance, it will ensure Yusuf sees nothing of himself in his challenger. 

He has his attention. Yusuf turns on him, cutting the throat of the man he’s fighting so he can pursue his new opponent. This man may be himself centuries removed, but Joe still knows what to expect from him and each assault is met with a ready defense.

The clash of sword to scimitar is a familiar battle, but the rage Joe fights with is new.

He’s furious with himself and he pours it into this fight. How could he have ignored something happening in the world so important? How could he have lost Nicky? How could he have done that? 

Joe fights this battle on his heels, even with the rage bubbling up in him. 

Every sweeping strike of the scimitar is blocked lightly, sending him backwards. This way, they travel to where they need to be, and when he comes across the splay of brown hair on the ground and the unmistakable line of Nicolò’s body, Joe stops.

He digs his heels in and faces down Yusuf, a fire in his eyes he’s had since the lab.

The force with which Joe fights clearly surprises Yusuf, who staggers backwards more than once against the longsword’s blow. Even from here, he can see the admiration in his eyes. _Good_ , thinks Joe. Anything to keep Yusuf here when Nicolò awakes. When Yusuf stumbles back, almost as if unwilling to face him, Joe lashes out and chases him down to grab at his clothes, yanking him back. 

The sun has set, leaving the moon to illuminate the field with its cool light. Joe thinks of Nicky, his moon, and he feints right before ducking left, driving the longsword through Yusuf’s torso. Joe’s fingers shake as he grabs tight to his past self’s shoulder, digging the blade in further. 

“Nicolò di Genova,” he gets out, his voice hoarse. “I am the one who killed you. Remember this sword.” 

He pulls the blade swiftly from Yusuf, wiping Nicolò’s weapon carefully on the sides of his breeches as he watches Yusuf struggle to stay vertical. 

It doesn’t last long. He hits the ground hard, hand splayed and reaching out towards Nicolò.

“Stay down,” Joe tells this ghost of himself, where Yusuf has collapsed only feet from Nicolò. When they awake, hopefully together, they will see that they are two alone on a battlefield of corpses. 

It’s not the same as it should be, but it’s close enough. 

At least, Joe _prays_ it’s close enough. 

Once Yusuf gives his last creaking breath and the death rattle in his lungs gives way to stillness, Joe staggers to the ground, collapsing on his knees at Nicolò’s side. He pries off the helmet he’d borrowed and puts it back on Nicolò’s head, but not before he’s taken the time to push blood-stained hair from his temple and brush his lips there possessively.

“Don’t let this be the last time I kiss you,” he warns a dead man. 

The longsword is returned next, buckled securely around Nicolò’s waist. Joe presses his splayed fingers to Nicolò’s chest, sagging over his body like a man at prayer, his forehead tucked in the hollow of Nicolò’s clavicle. 

He hasn’t earned a single scratch. In a thousand years of fighting, he’s learned enough to ensure that he walks away unscathed, but he feels like someone’s dug a dagger in his heart and pried it out for what he’s had to do. Maybe that’s worse. Maybe it would’ve been easier on his soul for Nicolò and Yusuf to kill one another without getting blood on his hands, but he had to make sure.

With Nicky’s existence on the line, there could be no room for error.

Joe pries himself off Nicolò’s body with a ragged exhalation, noticing the noise around them has fallen to a hush. The siege is coming to a pause until more soldiers arrive to defend their ground.

Nicolò and Yusuf are positioned beside one another. When they wake, they will recognize the enemy’s clothing and their weapons. They will keep killing each other. They will kill each other until there is no hate left, until they are empty of fury and rage and the void gives something else a chance to grow.

At least, Joe hopes.

He’s done all he can do. 

Weary, Joe slides the tattered fabric of his sleeve up to reveal the device, programming in his return destination and watching as it charges. The light is blinking orange, waiting to go back to green. As he waits, he reaches out to settle his hand near Nicolò’s for one last grasp, a lifeless attempt at comfort, before the device pings its readiness.

The future awaits. 

With every last ounce of faith in his heart, Joe devotes himself to the return journey with a single prayer on his lips. 

_Let this be enough to bring Nicky back to me._

* * *

Joe comes back to the EROQP lab on his knees, his clothes on their way to tattered shreds and stained with both Nicolò and Yusuf’s blood, and he feels _tired_. He’s only been gone a fraction of the time he’s been given, but every part of him aches. 

He had to kill Nicky again. It’s been centuries since he did, but in order to save what they have, he’d buried his dagger into Nicky’s heart, watching him bleed out as the betrayal flickered in his eyes. He never wanted to see that again, but it was necessary.

He’s so tired, but he’s also so damn scared to open his eyes.

“Mr...um, Jones?” The scientist sounds wary. “Can I get the device back?”

In response, Joe takes it off and lets it clatter to the linoleum floor. He hears her footsteps, but within three steps, Joe’s got his dagger out, smashing it to pieces with the hilt. He opens his eyes to see the scientist’s shock, feeling a vindictive and smug pride wash over him for it. He hopes the rest of the team have sent the worm into their research to obliterate their research before the timeline reset itself or however the hell time travel works. 

Maybe he should have taken some time to read that research before they’d destroyed it.

“Oh,” she says.

“Leave,” Joe warns, keeping a hand on the ground to steady himself. He doesn’t watch, but he hears her footsteps as she hurries away. Hopefully she got her money, or tonight’s going to end up a very bad evening for her.

He prays he hasn’t fucked it all up, destroying it before he’s confirmed Nicky’s back, but he did everything right. There’s nothing else he could have done, but Nicky isn’t at his side. Joe is still on his knees, every breath ragged as he digs his palm into the floor.

Nile and Booker have cleared out or maybe they were never there, but where the hell is Nicky?

“Someone talk to me,” Joe rasps, closing his eyes again as he hears the door to the lab open. He doesn’t open his eyes, because the hesitant footfall isn’t one he recognizes and he’s not sure he’s ready for the heartbreak of opening his eyes to see. “Booker?” 

Then, he hears the sweetest sound in the whole damn world. 

“By now, I thought you should be able to tell the difference between me and _Booker_.”

Joe lets out a pained sound as he opens his eyes. 

There he is. There he _is_ , fuck, it’s Nicky. It’s his Nicky, more beautiful than ever and staring at Joe like he’s a goddamn angel looming above him, ready to bless him with a message from the heavens.

Joe’s laughing, even if it doesn’t sound like it. No, it sounds more like an ugly sobbing burst of sound, mingled with a relieved edge of glee. Joe scrubs his palms over his face like he’s not entirely sure he’s believing what he’s seeing, but there he is. 

“Time is a very funny thing,” his Nicky tells him as he sinks to his knees before Joe, prying Joe’s hands away from his face to hold him gently by the wrists. “I came as soon as I knew you would be here, even though you are only here because you had to get me back. Next time,” he says, tangling their hands together, “we should pay more attention to the television so we will know to do the job _before_ I am blinked out of history.”

Joe isn’t sure he can speak, or maybe he just doesn’t want to. He wants to stare at Nicky, touch him, ground him in reality and in Joe’s mind and heart. 

Some questions, though, are worth the fight to get out. “How do you remember?”

Nicky’s smile is more beautiful than all the stars in the sky. Joe collapses forward into his waiting touch. “Destiny,” he says, like that somehow explains it. 

“Don’t ever fucking leave me again, Nicolò,” Joe warns.

“If I did, you would come and get me.”

It’s not the answer he wants, which means Joe needs to get the right promise from his lips. He cups Nicky’s neck tenderly and crashes into him to kiss him with the mounting desperation of a man whose world has just come back to him. His fingers scrape against Nicky’s sideburns as he holds him, then dive into his hair to grab at the longer strands near his ears. 

The hold is possessively tight, but it’s not so much a belief that Nicky will leave him so much as Joe’s desperation to plead with the universe to let him hold _on_ and not let him go. 

It’s only been a week, but the taste of the kiss thrills him and the feel of his lips so warm against Joe’s elicits a needful sound that’s been buried beneath a wall for the last seven days, a fear that he wouldn’t be able to bring Nicky back and he’d never get to kiss him again.

Joe crashes forward like waves cresting over the sand, each following kiss a promise. 

_I’ve always loved you_.

He cups Nicky’s neck, tipping his head to the side to deepen the kiss, ignorant of their surroundings. 

_I love you._

He presses forward, his other hand sliding to Nicky’s chest to feel the steady beat of his heart, still strong after nearly a thousand years. 

_I will always love this man._

He only parts because he wants to _see_ Nicky again, slumping with relief against him. The weight of his worry has fallen off his shoulders and Joe feels like himself again. “I mean it, Nicky,” Joe warns, pressing his forehead to the side of Nicky’s, finally able to think clearly. “Don’t you go anywhere.”

“I’m here to stay,” Nicky vows, satiating Joe’s need for contact by leaning a little harder against him. 

That’s it. That’s all Joe needs. 

Nicky is beside him and the universe feels _right_ again. It only took doing the unthinkable and sinking back in time to do it, but for Nicky? Joe would do much worse.

* * *

“Are you sure about this?” Nicky asks for the tenth time.

Joe shakes his head. “Fuck no,” he admits. “He broke our trust by selling us out, but he’s also the one who got you back to me. In another life, he’s the only reason you’re here with me and I’m not the same miserable bastard he is.” Shaking his head still, like he needs the constant motion, because he can’t believe what he’s saying. “I think the two balance each other.”

That seems to calm Nicky down, because he doesn’t ask again.

Joe knocks on the door, which rattles and groans with the light knock. 

“Can’t afford a better shithole?” Joe mumbles.

“Hey,” says Booker, who opens the awful termite-infested door. “You took all the safehouses that weren’t falling apart, leave my shithole out of this. What are you doing here?”

“You really don’t remember,” Joe says, squinting at Booker like he’s trying to parse the lie. Booker looks as exhausted and confused as ever, which means whatever happened looks like it’ll go down in the history books as another Joe and Nicky adventure, something that they share and talk about in the years to come. 

It’s no Malta, but Joe definitely thinks it’s earned a chapter heading in the book of their relationship.

“We decided that your exile’s terms needed revisiting,” Joe says, letting himself into Booker’s apartment. He goes right for the fridge, making an approving noise when he sees the beer that Nicky likes. He grabs one for himself, then holds one out. “Nicky, here.”

“ _Grazie_.”

“What the fuck are you doing here stealing my beer?”

Joe digs out his keychain to find the bottle opener, handing Booker an opened bottle of Peroni. “I thought you would’ve wanted to toast to the fact that we’re reducing your sentence.”

Booker takes the beer, but stares at them both suspiciously. “Why?”

“Because you helped me yank Nicky back from non-existence.” Joe salutes him. “I figured for that, a hundred years is probably too long when you factor that in. Nicky and I talked about it and we figured...what, sixteen?”

Nicky nods dutifully. “Yes, sixteen.”

“Which,” Joe makes a big production of thinking about it, squinting one eye shut as he arches the other eyebrow, “if I’m good at math…”

“You’re excellent at math, _rohi_.”

“Thank you,” Joe tells Nicky, grinning at him. “I am. So, _because_ I’m so excellent at math, I know that sixteen years means that your banishment is over as of next Wednesday.”

Booker looks like he’s questioning how sober he is. “Uh…” is a stammered breath, but then he gets a look on his face, almost like he realizes that he shouldn’t be arguing this. “Nicky was non-existent?” he asks instead.

“It’s a hell of a story,” Joe admits, able to talk about it more casually now that he’s had some time to process and remind himself how very much Nicky is _here_ again. “How about we tell you over dinner, next Wednesday,” he says, draining the last of the Peroni and setting the empty on Booker’s counter. He gestures to it with a fond smile. “Keeping Nicky’s favourite around, huh?”

“Never know if you’re going to have company,” Booker replies, still sounding wary. “Wednesday,” he echoes.

“Don’t be late,” Nicky tells him. “My cooking doesn’t taste as good as it should when it’s cold.” 

Nicky sets his bottle right beside Joe’s, glass kissing glass, and wraps an arm around Joe’s shoulder to leave Booker to his shock. They hear nothing else from Booker as they go, which means they can definitely expect to see him at the safehouse next Wednesday, probably with a very nice vintage wine that he’s dug out of one of his cellars.

Stepping out onto the streets of Paris, Nicky’s eyes brighten as he takes in their surroundings, the corners of his lips curving up with a soft happiness that makes him _shine_. 

“Where do you want to go, _ya amar_ ,” Joe asks, caught up in staring at Nicky because he can. He’s here. He’s alive. He _exists_.

And he’s all Joe’s.

“So long as it’s with you, _luce della mia vita_ , it can be anywhere.”

Then anywhere it will be. Joe wraps his arm around Nicky’s waist as they walk to nowhere in particular, but knowing that they’re _together_ and that’s all that matters. Now that Joe’s gotten Nicky back, he’s not letting him go, and their destiny will remain fulfilled.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there will be more and until then, you can always shout at me on [tumblr](https://andrea-lyn.tumblr.com/).


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